


Jinx

by morganya



Category: Bandom
Genre: F/M, M/M, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-13
Updated: 2012-02-13
Packaged: 2017-10-31 02:12:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,860
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/338750
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/morganya/pseuds/morganya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gabe tries not to put any negative energy in the universe.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Jinx

**Author's Note:**

> Written for prompt #11 at no_tags, "Pete/Gabe, pining."

Pete specifies that Gabe can't pick out anything obscene for the tattoo. Gabe says that he's just being a pussy.

"I'm not walking around for the rest of my life with your penis on my body," Pete says over the phone. "And I'm not going near that picture of Stalin eating a cheeseburger. It's offensive and historically inaccurate."

"This is your chance to make a political statement, bro," Gabe points out.

"I make enough stupid political statements as it is. Plus I could change my mind. Swing over to the far right. I could become a card-carrying NRA member, you never know."

"Well, then you'd need something to remind yourself of your roots. Hey, so what about the others? It's not all dicks and dictators."

"I am not using the hot oil wrestler, Gabe."

"He's not even naked!"

"He's holding a dildo."

"Oh, you can barely tell what it is."

"My wife's already pissed at me for making this promise, dude. If you pick out anything the least bit iffy, I'm probably going to get divorced."

"I don't want to be corny and give you a best friends forever tattoo."

"I got best friends forever tattoos with Trav."

"Hey, I got no beef with you and Travie. I just need to be sure you get something memorable from me."

"I'm good with memorable. I just want it to be a story I can tell my kid without having to leave out half the details. Let me know what you come up with and I'll run it by the boss."

"I still don't know why Ashlee gets executive approval."

"Married life, dude. All about compromise." Pete hangs up.

Gabe has no idea what to do. He doesn't care if the finished product is ugly; Gabe's got a good relationship with ugly. It's just got to be the right kind of ugly. Something that won't make Ashlee distrust him even more than she already does.

*****

He wasn't there for Pete's wedding. It looked good on paper; he was touring and not sure what state he was in from one day to the next, and popping over to California for a wedding just wasn't a good idea. He sent a congratulatory text instead.

He saw the pictures afterward, the both of them glowing and happy, smiles pressed into glossy magazine paper. He could imagine it pretty well: everyone drinking champagne while Bright Eyes played for the first dance, Pete happier than he'd ever been.

Gabe dropped the magazine by the side of the couch and tried not to think about it anymore.

*****

He finds his third grade class picture somewhere in his apartment. It's a little close to the bone for him, but it seems to fit Ashlee's specifications reasonably well. In the picture, Gabe saw himself glaring at the camera, arms crossed, face still baby fat-round. If he squinted, he could almost say it was someone else.

Pete calls up after he sent the scanned file over. "Classic Saporta!" he says happily.

"What'd Ashlee say?"

"Took a little time, but I think I got her on board."

"She can't say this signifies anything," Gabe says. "I mean, it's fine. It's not like it's a picture of me holding up a big sign that says I love Pete or anything. It's okay."

"I don't know why you're scared of her."

"Oh, fuck you. I ain't never scared. Of anyone."

"Ashlee loves you, Gabe."

"No, she doesn't," Gabe says, and then winces.

"Come on, dude."

"If I was married to someone who kept hanging out with a maniac, I'd be on my guard too."

"I can talk to her. If she knows you're scared of her –"

"I am _not_ scared of her!"

"I want you guys to get along, Gabe."

"We get along," Gabe says. "I just don't want anyone to think I'm getting in the middle of you guys."

"Who said anything about that?"

"Nobody," Gabe says. "Just – voice of experience."

*****

Gabe was pretty sure that he spent the entirety of Believers Never Die Part Deux either drunk or hopped up on pills. The main reason was that he didn't know how long he was going to be able to actually sing for a living and he wanted to go out with a bang. The other reason was that somehow his life had gotten completely and utterly fucked up and he couldn't fix it. The band usually bore it pretty well, but occasionally when he got too rowdy someone would banish him to the Fall Out bus, because somehow they'd gotten the idea that Pete was able to wrangle him. He liked the other bus better anyway.

On the night when he sliced his leg open jumping on the furniture in the back lounge, Ryland wrapped a towel around the cut and quietly escorted him off. Gabe staggered across the rest stop parking lot, dripping blood on the tarmac, and shoved his way into Pete's bus. He didn't even have time to shout, "Hey, motherfuckers," before Pete took his arm and brought him into the back to find the Neosporin.

He'd mostly stopped bleeding by the time they got there, but Pete smeared goo on his leg and started sticking band-aids on him anyway.

"Quit it," Gabe said faintly, sprawled out across the couch while Pete scowled at his leg. "It doesn't even fuckin' hurt."

"This is good training for me," Pete said. "Before you know it, the little dude will be walking, and if he's anything like his dad he'll be falling over everything. I need to practice my boo-boo kissing skills."

"Don't want anything kissed," Gabe said. "Can I stay here tonight? My band's mad at me again."

"Dude, you need to shape up or they're all going to quit. You got to temper the crazy with something worthwhile, let me tell you."

"I don't care."

"You're a liar."

"Am so a liar. No, wait, I mean, am not a liar."

"You don't know what you mean," Pete said kindly. "There. All better. One more scar on the pile."

"Well, thanks, I guess."

"Your gratitude humbles me. Look, I've got to call Ash before it gets too late, are you going to be okay here for a minute?"

"You calling to say goodnight?"

"Yeah. It's this thing we do."

"Because you're married," Gabe said. "You do this because you're married. You didn't marry me, you married someone else."

"I _feel_ like I'm married to you sometimes," Pete said dryly. "You're out all night drinking and carousing and I'm by the phone waiting to know if I'm going to have to hock my wedding ring for bail money. This isn't the glamorous life you promised me, asshole."

"Well, that explains everything," Gabe said, and then passed out.

*****

Gabe makes sure he's good and drunk when Pete gets his tattoo. Drinking helps him maintain the party mood, and if they're actually filming this shit for CobraCam, he wants to ensure that he's fun and happy as opposed to anything else. Ashlee perhaps wisely does not accompany Pete to the entire debacle.

He demands that he be the one to shave Pete's leg when the tattoo artist whips out the razor. Pete looks unsure about it but doesn't say no. It's a little disposable razor, the kind they sell in drugstores, and he kneels by Pete's feet while he delicately and painstakingly shaves Pete bare.

"Don't slash an artery," Pete says.

"It'd be real fuckin' hard to get to an artery at this angle, dumbass," Gabe says. "Don't break my concentration."

When it comes down to the actual tattoo, Pete doesn't take it like a man. He writhes and whines and yelps, and Gabe has to stand behind him and push his shoulders down so he doesn't spring out of the chair.

"I hate you," Pete says between gritted teeth.

"You love me," Gabe corrects.

"No, I don't."

"I knew it," Gabe says.

He somehow manages to have a couple more drinks while they're finishing up the tattoo. Someone asks him why he chose the design, and his head and vision are too blurry to stop himself from saying, "I just felt like one day Pete would abandon me, so if he got a picture of me, he could never abandon me."

He doesn't think about the camera being there until it's too late.

When everything's all over, Pete gives everyone hugs and makes them promise to send him a copy of the finished episode. Gabe watches him leaving to go home to his wife and kid, and then he goes home alone.

*****

Gabe tries not to interfere. He tries to be happy with what he has and with the person he is. He tries not to put any negative energy into the universe, because the universe has a way of swinging back on itself, and Gabe doesn't want to be the one to blame when everything goes wrong.

He doesn't want to think about Pete and what could have happened. Pete has a wife and a son and stability that Gabe could never offer him even if he knew how to, and what Gabe wants shouldn't matter in the grand scheme of things.

Maybe in some other universe there's a Pete who never fell in love with Ashlee and a Gabe who could have been the person that Pete needed. Maybe they didn't waste any time fucking themselves up and instead settled into domestic bliss with each other, a house, dogs, children. Maybe that's all Gabe can hope for.

If it's not the universe he lives in, then that's not something that he has any control over. He has scraps and pieces that belong to him, and even that may be more than he deserves.

*****

Gabe flies out to Japan to meet Pete when he gets the news about Ashlee. He sits for hours in an airplane trying not to crawl out of his skin, trying not to think. He gets to the hotel in Tokyo and Pete's already drunk.

Gabe does what Pete would have done for him, calls room service for coffee and pours three glasses of water down Pete's throat. He lies next to Pete on the hotel bed, not wanting to get too close for fear of triggering Pete's claustrophobia and bringing on a full-on panic attack.

"I just don't know what happened," Pete says. "I don't know what I did. I don't know what I said. I thought everything was fine."

"I did too."

"I just – I just feel like someone jinxed me with this. 'You will fuck up everything that ever meant anything to you forever.' I thought I was finally going to get to be _happy_." He stares at Gabe like he thinks he's going to get an answer. His eyes are wild and bottomless. "What jinxed it, Gabe?"

"I don't know," Gabe says. It's not an answer, but just hearing him talk seems to settle Pete down enough for him to pass out. Gabe lies on the bed staring at the ceiling, silently whispering, _I didn't do this, I didn't do this, I didn't do this_ , over and over, hoping that eventually he'll believe it.


End file.
